'Donorcycles': Freedom to ride's unorthodox benefit?

Wear a helmet, save a life. Don't wear one, and you may save up to eight — none of them your own.

Gruesome, yes, but motorcycles are dubbed "donorcycles" for a reason, some say. One study found that states like Florida that repealed mandatory helmet laws saw not just a corresponding spike in fatalities, but a healthy bump in organ donations from people who died in traffic accidents, especially among adult males, who represent the majority of motorcycle fatalities.

The documented risk of dying from a serious head wound while riding without a helmet is so high, bare-headed motorcyclists are considered ideal organ donors: They're typically young, otherwise healthy and at high risk of brain death from sudden trauma.

"We're never willing to weigh the tradeoff between people who die riding a motorcycle and people who need an organ transplant," said one of the study's lead authors, Stacy Dickert-Conlin, an associate economics professor at Michigan State University. "But the reality is that people who may never ride a bike might benefit" from motorcyclists who decide to go bare.

In the years following its repeal in 2000, the Sunshine State saw its organ donations among fatal vehicle accident victims mushroom by almost a third: from 99 in 1999 to 127 in 2002, after holding steady for four years, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics. Although the numbers don't extrapolate for motorcycle deaths in particular, men between the ages of 18 and 49 — a population most likely to die on a motorcycle — accounted for 89 percent of that growth.

"It stands to reason that if you do not wear a helmet, it is far more likely that you will suffer a serious or catastrophic brain injury that would make you a candidate for organ donation," said Brian Carpenter, an avid rider and helmet-use supporter who runs Systems Design & Support Inc. in Delray Beach. "I think [being an organ donor] is a great idea and would be honored to allow someone else to live or have a better quality of life when I am done using my organs."

The post-repeal jump in organ donations came at a time when fatal motorcycle accidents nearly doubled, from 515 bikers killed between 1997 and 1999 to 933 between 2000 and 2002, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Government officials have long asserted that it's no coincidence the increase came as helmet use plummeted in half. Registrations, by comparison, grew by just 42 percent.

And when motorcycle fatalities fell across Florida between 2008 and 2010, so did organ donations resulting from deadly traffic accidents, statistics show — this amid awareness efforts and training requirements credited for a marked increase in helmet use.

"It seems senseless to ride anywhere without a helmet," said Carpenter, 44, who serves as president of the South Florida Riders Club, a safety-conscious group of about 60 regular motorcyclists who take long-distance rides across the state every Sunday.

The club's motto: All gear, all the time.

"The accident at 70 mph is probably going to kill you with or without a helmet," he said. "It's the accident at 30 mph where it'll make a difference."

As a helmet-law supporter, Carpenter recognizes he's in the minority in Florida, where an influential lobby of riders, arguing that helmets should be a choice not a mandate, persuaded the Legislature to dump its years-old helmet mandate 12 years ago.

"To me, it's a freedom issue," said Michael Gluckman, a picture framer for an art store in Boca Raton. "I sometimes wear a helmet. It's heavy and very hot and gives me an instant headache. It takes so much of the pleasure out of riding a motorcycle."

The other side

The debate rages on at a time when motorcycle fatalities in Florida appear to be on the rise once again.

A Governors Highway Safety Association report released May 22 found that, while overall traffic deaths fell across the country last year, fatal motorcycle accidents inched up, based on a preliminary study of the first nine months of 2011. In Florida, motorcycle fatalities were headed for a 4 percent bump.

James "Doc" Reichenbach, president of ABATE of Florida, a biker group that led the helmet repeal lobby, isn't buying it. He believes the government's fatality studies are "so biased it's pathetic," an organized effort by the many who don't ride motorcycles to push a helmet-use agenda on the relative few who do.

Helmets, or the lack of them, aren't motorcyclists' deadliest threat, Reichenbach said, it's the motorists who don't take enough care to share the road. In fact, helmets could actually become an impediment, he said, despite voluminous evidence showing they save lives.

"You can't hear right, you can't see right. Whiplash can break your neck because it's so heavy," he said. "When they do a study about how people actually died [in motorcycle accidents], then I'll start paying attention."

He's heard all the comments about "donorcycles," too. And though he doesn't believe there's any direct link between helmetless riding and organ donations, as an organ donor, Reichenbach said he'd be happy to know he saved a life if he meets his end doing what he loves.

Gluckman agrees. Though he's never heard of the donorcycle concept, he supports organ donation.

"I am all for organ donation," he said. "I feel it should be mandatory for all people, regardless of lifestyle/recreation choices."

Dr. Seong Lee, a trauma surgeon at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, takes exception to the suggestion that there's a causal relationship between any risky behavior and organ donation trends.

Helmetless riding is indeed dangerous, and Lee has had to try to patch up the massive head trauma it can produce. But, he said, motorcycle deaths, someone's decision to register as an organ donor and the process of harvesting organs from a brain-dead patient are entirely separate events that are linked only through happenstance.

"All that [connection] does, especially if people are uninformed [about organ donation] is to create more anxiety about the process" of harvesting and donating organs, Lee said. "It's not like we're actively looking around for organ donors.

"And just because someone died in a motorcycle accident doesn't mean they're an organ donor, and it doesn't mean their organs can be harvested. It's a process."

Follow-up report

Michigan State University put the donorcycle concept to the test after that state began weighing a helmet repeal of its own. And as many outside the small motorcycle-riding public demanded to know how they'd be affected by a helmet repeal, the researchers found that those who don't ride may well see a benefit — if they're ever in need of an organ. One donor is said to be able to save up to eight lives.

The unpublished study found that Florida and five other states that yanked their helmet mandates — Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Pennsylvania — saw on average a 10 percent growth in organ donations resulting from fatal traffic accidents in the first years after the repeals. Michigan's repeal took effect April 13.

The perceived link between motorcycle fatalities and organ donations has been so strong over the years that California and New Mexico even tried unsuccessfully to pass laws that would have presumed any helmetless rider who perished in an accident to be an organ donor, even if they hadn't registered as one.

MSU is now in the midst of producing a follow-up report showing that people are less likely to die waiting for an organ in states without helmet laws, Dickert-Conlin said.

"I don't really discuss organ donation with anyone else," he said, "but would venture a guess that if part of the registration process for a motorcycle was a mandatory check box choosing whether or not to be an organ donor, most motorcyclists would choose to do so."